ROSA BONHEUR 1822 - 1899

​Prologue August 25 2015, in the heart of the French capital, activists change the name of 40 streets by women’s names, putting the “dames” in front of Notre-Dame (!) “Rue de Harlay” re-named “Rue Florence Arthaud” and the “Pont Saint-Michel” became “Pont Toni Morisson”. Without forgetting female artists: “Camille Claudel instead of “Massillon” and “Niki de Saint-Phalle" on the “Quai aux fleurs”.This is also a reaction to the fact that currently only 2,6% of all streets and squares apparently have a woman’s name.

1897 - in that year the doors of the “beaux-arts” school in Paris, created a century prior, are finally opened to young women. However, they are not granted access to the workshops nor competitive examinations. Only courses in perspective, anatomy, art history are accessible to the women that have fulfilled general admission requirements.

Rosa Bonheur, the first female artist to receive the legion of honour, studies then outside of the establishment with her father who was a drawing professor. A few years later, her painting “The Horse Fair” gets her international recognition. She leaves for England and the United States to present her artwork that will end up in the New York Metropolitan Museum. Today, an important representation of her work is part of the remarkable collections at the Orsay Museum.

Rosa Bonheur is not only the trendy bar at the Buttes Chaumont nor the eponym barge to chill in the summer on the banks of the River Seine. Rosa Bonheur is a personality. A woman that was wearing trousers, judged more practical, under her painter’s coat. An avant-garde feminist with a proud ambition for the gender she belonged to, sex that she glorified and would support its independence until her last days. She earned her living alone and never married: “I know there might be husbands with noble character that are the first to bring out their wives’ merits, but they are rare!”